Something for the Pain
by Bizarre Bazaar
Summary: Set in the 12th chapter, Ralph finds out about Jack's plan to 'hunt' him. Chapter two up. A partially insane Ralph must choose. R/R
1. Prologue: The Cry Falls Short

Disclaimer:I don'town the rights to the plot, setting, or characters of or related to the Lord of the Flies. I just take my liberties, but then, doesn't everyone? This will eventually contain slash, as in male/male, or in this case, boy/boy. Do not read if you do not like. 

Note: This fiction is just my little muse which eventually evolved into a story. In no way should you take it into serious consideration of how I violated, destroyed, or completely ignored any symbols or themes in the original piece of writing. And the 'Naval Officer' doesn't come to save the boys. He never comes.

Something for the Pain  
-The Cry Falls Short-

(This beginning part is taken directly from the book. Scroll down if you want to find my shit without reading Golding's)

"You two aren't painted. How can you—? If it were light—"  
If it were light shame would burn them at admitting these things. But the night was dark. Eric took up; and then the twins started their antiphonal speech.  
"You got to go because it's not safe—"  
"—they made us. They hurt us—"  
"Who? Jack?"  
"Oh no—"  
They bent to him and lowered their voices.  
"Push off, Ralph—"  
"—it's a tribe—"  
"—they made us—"  
"—we couldn't help it—"  
When Ralph spoke again his voice was low, and seemed breathless.  
"What have I done? I liked him—and I wanted us to be rescued—"  
Again the stars spilled about the sky. Eric shook his head, earnestly.  
"Listen, Ralph. Never mind what's sense. That's gone—"  
"Never mind about the chief—"  
"—you got to go for your own good."  
"The chief and Roger—"  
"—yes, Roger—"  
"They hate you Ralph. They're going to do you."  
"They're going to hunt you tomorrow."  
"But why?"  
"I dunno. And Ralph, Jack, the chief, says it'll be dangerous—"  
"—and we've got to be careful and throw our spears like at a pig."  
"We're going to spread out in a line across the island—"  
"—we're going forward from this end—"  
"—until we find you."  
"We've got to give signals like this."  
Eric raised his head and achieved a faint ululation by beating on his open mouth. Then he glanced behind him nervously.  
"Like that—"  
"—only louder, of course."  
"But I've done nothing," whispered Ralph, urgently. "I only wanted to keep up a fire!"  
He paused for a moment, thinking miserably of the morrow. A matter of overwhelming importance occurred of him.  
"What are you—?"  
He could not bring himself to be specific at first; but then fear and loneliness goaded him.  
"When they find me, what are they going to do?"  
The twins were silent. Beneath him, the death rock flowered again.  
"What are they—oh God! I'm hungry—"  
The towering rock seemed to sway under him.  
"Well—what—?"  
The twins answered hid question indirectly.  
"You got to go now, Ralph."  
"For your own good."  
"Keep away. As far as you can."  
"Won't you come with me? Three of us—we'd stand a chance."  
After a moment's silence, Sam spoke in a strangled voice.  
"You don't know Roger. He's a terror."  
"And the chief—they're both—"  
"—terrors—"  
"—only Roger—"  
Both boys froze. Someone was climbing towards them from the tribe.  
"He's coming to see if we're keeping watch. Quick, Ralph!"  
As he prepared to let himself down the cliff, Ralph snatched at the last possible advantage to be wrung out of this meeting.  
"I'll lie up close; in that thicket down there," he whispered, "so keep them away from it. They'll never think to look so close—"  
The footsteps were still some distance away.  
"Sam—I'm going to be all right, aren't I?"  
The twins were silent again.  
"Here!" said Sam suddenly. "Take this—"  
Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it.  
"But what are you going to do when you catch me?"  
Silence above. He sounded silly to himself. He lowered himself down the rock.  
"What are you going to do—?"  
From the top of the towering rock came the incomprehensible reply.  
"Roger sharpened a stick at both ends."

Now here's the obvious transition between Golding's work to mine

Roger... the name... the face.... a stick?

Ralph remembered that mocking sneer when he had done in Piggy. That damn boulder— when had that been? Today, yesterday, a week ago?  
Hunched over between the itching reeds, Ralph found he couldn't remember.

He snorted with disgust at himself. Couldn't remember—was that the way to live? They had already forgotten life before the island. Mere imagery and sensations. There was no life but the island.

Ralph wouldn't—or couldn't—forget it though. He was the one who held on to the belief of rescue. He was the one who had to keep the dream alive. No one else was going to—

—and really, who was this Jack? Who was he to come about in his tide of murder and destruction? He was the one who had tainted the island. It could have worked, Ralph knew it, the plan, the mock civilization. The Beast wouldn't have come if not for Jack. Hell, Jack was the beast.

A tyrant.

That was why they were on the island. Their country had been fighting a war against a dictator. Irony was it for them to have crash-landed here to find another.

Jack's ruthlessness was killing them all, one-by-one. That littleun', Simon, Piggy, probably him next—

—but why did it have to be him, Ralph, next? Was it because he was good? He saw behind Jack's performance. Jack was the evil force come to take over the island. He was trying to eradicate 'good' out of that perfect once-standing civilization.

Spreading his taint to the rest of them all—they were all evil now. Ralph was the only one left. He was the only one of them who was good.  
He didn't have to die. It was them. They needed to be gone. They were the ones being influenced by Jack, by the Beast, by evil. Roger, Bill, Robert, the littleuns'. Even Samneric.

All of them.

Why did Roger have a stick?

"Evil shouldn't live." Ralph whispered to himself. "Not when there's good."

And it really shouldn't. At one time, Ralph could have been friends with Jack, but now, no more. Jack was setting up a hunt. Jack was trying to kill him.

"Friends don't kill friends." Ralph said out-loud to no one but the trees.

Piggy, Simon. They had been his friends. They were dead.

Sharpen a stick?

Jack, Roger, everyone else. They were his enemies. They were still alive. How was this right? It wasn't.

Something had to be done.

Looking at his surroundings, he knew it wouldn't work. Ralph had told Samneric where he was going to be. They were probably squealing there guts out to Jack right now.

Squealing. Piggy.

He should have stood up for the guy. That name was not well-earned. Ralph was the one who did everything for himself. He refused to stand up for the poor kid. Ralph was the Pig.

But if he was the pig did that make Jack the hunter?

No, never. Jack. Evil.

Standing up, Ralph calculated his options. He couldn't stay here in the thicket. He probably couldn't stay anywhere on the island. He wouldn't be safe anywhere. They would hunt him down—no. There was one place; one place on the entire hellish island where not one of Jack's twisted hunters would set foot. And Ralph didn't blame them.

Why would someone sharpen a stick at both ends?

Ralph was slowly heading inland. If he were to keep walking, he would eventually reach the Mountain, but that was not where he was heading. He was going to the Beast.

He didn't believe there to be an actual Beast, but the way the littleuns talked about it and even how Jack seemed avoid the subject. It was more of a fear that had been slowly transcribed into him from the others.

Following a beaten path, Ralph pursued something that Simon had probably walked every day. "I never did understand that kid," Ralph said, softly. "But that didn't mean he had to die." Finally, he reached his destination; a cave,  
leading downwards into the earth.

It would be his new home. During the day, he would sleep, strengthen himself up, do anything to get him an advantage over Jack. During the night, he would emerge. Get food, supplies, and wreck havoc.

Jack had taken everything from him, but he wasn't going to take his life. Ralph was going to combat evil; he was going to bring back good to the island.

Even if it meant destroying Jack and the tribe.

A stick?

Kind of cruppy ending but... Anyone want me to continue?


	2. Chapter One: My Comfort My Insanity

Disclaimer:I don'town the rights to the plot, setting, or characters of or related to the Lord of the Flies. I just take my liberties, but then, doesn't everyone? This will eventually contain slash, as in male/male, or in this case, boy/boy. Do not read if you do not like. 

Note: This fiction is just my little muse which eventually evolved into a story. In no way should you take it into serious consideration of how I violated, destroyed, or completely ignored any symbols or themes in the original piece of writing. And the 'Naval Officer' doesn't come to save the boys. He never comes.

Something for the Pain  
-My Comfort; My Insanity-

(Six months after the previous events)

He was bleeding and he didn't care. The warm flow was trickling down his cheek and he didn't mind. The only thought he gave to it was to rub the source with his hand, disrupting the broken blood vessel's healing process.

He licked his hand clean. He ran his tongue through his fingers, savoring every drop of the crimson liquid. He had to fight the urge to bite down onto his hand. Blood tasted good in his mouth, but his own tasted exceptional. But he had no time for this. Ralph had bigger problems to deal with then some stupid cut.

They were out there. Waiting for him. Waiting for him to screw up so they could roast his corpse over the flame. Laugh as his body burned, maybe alive, maybe dead; Ralph wasn't sure how they would go about. Probably alive.

That would suit Jack; hell the bastard would probably 'play' with Ralph's body afterward. Jack would do it. Yeah, fuck his charred corpse. Jack would definitely do it; for pleasure, for pain, Ralph didn't know, but he knew that Jack could and would.

And fire. They would taunt him with it. Fire was what they had. Fire was what he didn't have. It was psychology at its roots that they were messing with. But they didn't know that, they were simply boys. Simple delusional boys playing with fire.

Ralph ate his meals raw - thank you very much. Decaying meat left behind by some careless Hunter, insects, plants and berries – he knew which were safe by experiment of course. But at least he ate. Not like before...

"Hell."

At the moment, he was hidden in his secret place. The Cave. He lived in the Cave. The Hunters wouldn't dare go anywhere near it, for, when Ralph was still living with the tribe, it had been rumored that a horrible monster, A Beast, dwelled within. A boy had been lost to the Beast. Nobody, not even His Heinous, would go near it.

Now, the same was still applied, a monster still was living in the Cave, but the identity had switched. Ralph was the Beast. His Heinous still wouldn't come.

His Heinous was the boy Ralph once knew as Jack. It was a little thing he had going; heinous for highness. But Jack was no true ruler. He was a coward. Ralph had challenged him too. He had challenged him right and proper.

In the dark of night for that was his time now, he had went out and killed a pig all on his own. Ralph had liked it. He enjoyed feeling the blood seep over his hands as its pulse slowed down under his palms. Ralph had strangled the poor piglet for all he was worth.

But it was for a good cause. He kept telling himself that, it was for a good cause. The pig hadn't agreed with Ralph when he told it what he was going to do. Ralph remembered the dead pig talking to him; saying something about 'morals' and 'integrity'; something Ralph had lost and need to find.

He had decapitated the pig with a makeshift knife/sharpened rock and placed its head on a pike – sharpen a stick this. He stuck it in the ground near the Hunter's camp. Ralph waited in his cave for three days, hoping for an answer, but none came. Nothing. Jack didn't even bother, in the very least, to send a messenger with a reply, be it a letter or knife to gut. Ralph wouldn't have minded the knife. But he got nothing instead.

So Ralph had sat in his cave, fuming, thinking about the horrible pain and torture he was going to inflict on the other boy. The ass didn't have the decency to answer! He would show him. Yeah, he would. That was where he was now, deep in the cave, thinking evil thoughts. Deep in his mind, too.

In the dark, Ralph absently picked off a louse that had been crawling around his ankle. His entire body was covered with these little mites, but frankly, he didn't care. The buggers didn't bother him, the only true 'pest' he had was Jack and the Hunters.

But then, when was the last time he had seen one of them? Seven, eight days ago? He didn't know. Maybe they were killing off one another like Simon had prophesized in one of his saner moments. Or maybe someone had come and rescued the others.

"But why wouldn't they come get me then?"

Ralph nearly bashed his skull in with that last comment. They were evil. Evil couldn't coexist with good. It was common sense. He'd seen it on the films before he left.

He was good. He thought. Ralph couldn't remember if it was that, or the other way around. Was he evil? Evil people lived by themselves and couldn't stand to be near good. That was pretty much his situation. Ralph, ostracized by the rest of the boys, living out in his dank littlecave. He knew good was good. Should he go join the others, then?

-No, Ralph knew they were going to hurt him if they ever did get him. At this point though, Ralph didn't know if he would particularly hate dying. It would be so easy...

"No. Gotta do something. This isn't working." He whispered forcefully to the cave wall. It answered with a feint echo. The cave was the only one on this bleeding island that would talk to him besides the pig! But the pig was dead, killed by his hand.

Ralph started laughing. His throat closed up from lack of water and regular use of the vocal cords, among other things. He ended with a deep convulsive cough.

"Why do I have to whisper?" Ralph hollered, setting himself into another fit of coughs. Once he had recovered: "They all know I am here! Why do I have to be quite?" He stood up, brushing off the bugs and dirt that had collected on top of him. His legs had become stiff from sitting in the same position for hours. As he flexed his aching joints: "Come and get me Jack, you filthy dog! I don't fuckin' care about being the fuckin' leader!"

He half-limped towards the cave exit. The early morning light was just started to shine through the opening. "You know what Jack," he said, still shouting angrily. "I never cared about being the fuckin' leader! It was always you!"

At one time, he would have been stunned he had the gall to use the 'f-word'. Before the island, he would have shunned himself. He had no right; he wasn't an 'adult'. But that was before the island. Before the bleeding insanity had set in.

Ralph emerged from the underground cavern, getting a strong whiff of the salty sea-air. The cave had been musty and damp and had clogged his lungs. It had smelled like wet dog. No, like wet dog and blood. His blood. His wonderful tasty blood.

"Yeah Jack!" Ralph shouted, plopping himself down on a large rock; the short-lived adrenalin rush ending. He crossed his legs, Indian-style, and leaned forward. "You can go eat a stick! The hell with ya', the hell with your tribe, the beast, an'all of it."

Ralph picked up a stick and started to furiously scratch patterns into the dirt around his feet. Lowering his voice to a 'conversational voice' he ho-humidly sung,

"I have nothing better to do,  
why not go and fuck with you?  
Here's a knife, here's a gun,  
let's have fun with everyone.

You think you can treat me like shit?  
Well guess what, Jack, suck my dick!  
Fuck you and your 'crew',  
Like I said, I have nothing better to do!

I'm gonna slaughter ya', I'm gonna rape ya'  
I'm gonna decapitate you like I did that pig and wear your head as a hat and fuckin' fuck with your dick and fuckin' eat you liver and fuckin' shit on your corpse and—"

Ralph stopped. The last part had been more of a sentence, but that wasn't the reason he had stopped his chanting. He had heard a noise. Looking up, he saw the forest and nothing else. The same old trees, bushes, and bones. He continued with his drawing.Ralph shrugged it off. "Probably some Piggy come to kill me. Ha; Piggy." He grinned. "I wonder what the ol' dunderhead is up to now? Probably moaning and bitching. I should go find him; maybe he knows where that ol' conch is." Ralph looked down at his drawings.

Scratched in to the dirt, they depicted horrible, bloody scenes of people being tortured and dying. Ralph continued to grin. He rubbed his hands on his thighs, getting today's grime and filth all over himself.

"Maybe if I find the conch, everything will go back to normal."

Ralph hadn't bathed since he had first gone into hiding. He couldn't risk it, he didn't have the time; what, with Jack and the Hunters out for his tasty blood. His chin-length blonde hair was entangled with leaves, twigs, and lice; the nits burrowed in deep.

"Jack will be my friend again, the Hunters will be sane, I can play with the littleuns', Piggy and Simon will come back..."

His clothing was gone; Ralph didn't bother with the standard garments anymore. The months of going without shoes had blackened and toughened the bottoms of his feet to the point of being able to walk across sharp rocks. And his hands and face... were stained red. Red from the blood. The blood of animals, the blood of himself. But hell, he had to eat, so why not like an animal? It was what he was.The boy was a nude, greasy, dirty, bloody mess.

"I gotta get the conch. I gotta make things right."

Ralph stood up, smearing his dirt drawings beyond recognition. He sighed. He knew he would probably just go back and sit in the cave. He hadn't done anything for the cause. His first cause, getting back at Jack, had fallen flat. Ralph just couldn't muster up any determination to just go out and do something. He HAD killed that pig, but that was only one thing. And besides, he was going to anyway for food.

"Yep, that's me; Ralph: the boy with one hundred ideas but never the will to carry them out." Ralph spat on the ground. "I got better things to do then mope about all day, why the hell aren't I doing them then? Like get clean. I think I'll go take a bath. Screw Jack. It's what I've been saying for months, why don't I just go DO it. Yeah, I'll screw Jack." Ralph giggled. "But not like that." He used his wrist to wipe at the snot hanging from his nose. "And after I take a bath."

More to come.


End file.
